Afraid of Love
by writeturnlove
Summary: It's Halloween night and Damon Salvatore is afraid of something more risky than any battle with a villain. Bonnie Bennett is also chasing her own demons away for the sake of her own safety. This one-shot focuses on two people coming to terms with what scares them the most: how they feel about each other.


**Afraid of Love:** A Halloween Bamon Fic

(Halloween Bamon Fanfic Challenge)

By V.C. Turner

Damon stepped onto Bonnie's porch with a level of caution he normally reserved for the moments just before going to battle with a villain. A part of him worried that he would be entering into a fight as soon as he gathered the courage to knock on her door. He wanted to say so many things to her, but he didn't know if she would be willing to listen. She had just returned from her extended trip across Europe. During those months, she didn't respond to any of the phone calls or text messages he sent.

Bonnie did send one or two messages each month to Caroline, advising the blonde vampire of her location and stating that she was fine. Less than three days after casting the spell to wake Elena from the sleeping curse, the young Bennett witch stuffed her luggage in the back of her Toyota Prius and headed to the airport. She behaved as if she were escaping Hell rather than going on well-earned vacation.

She gave only brief hugs and goodbyes to her friends. The sorrow in her eyes as she left told him that a part of her was lost, but he had no idea which part. Damon understood that Enzo's death probably remained fresh in her mind, but she never spoke his name and had long-since removed the amulet carrying his blood. Bonnie appeared to be cutting all ties to her past and he worried she wouldn't return.

Bonnie's absence from Damon's life shook him to his core, and it surprised him just how much he missed her the instant she drove away. Their friendship had changed him in ways he never expected. He began to feel human long before being injected with the cure. He started to feel at peace with himself and with his future. Having Elena back in his life should have completed the puzzle, but it didn't. The emptiness remained not so deep within his soul and the fresh mortality he'd been gifted felt endlessly hollow.

After more than nine months of traveling through ancient cities in Europe, Bonnie returned home – eight days, two hours, and 33 minutes before Damon ascended the steps to her porch. He hadn't seen her since she arrived. She didn't allow anyone see her although he knew she had spoken several times with Caroline and Matt – but only over the phone.

So the former vampire paced on her porch with a heavy burden weighing on his shoulders, trying to get his human heart to stop beating so damn fast. He remembered the shy personality he possessed in the late 1860s. That Damon seemed to resurface with a vengeance.

"You can do this," Damon said to himself.

Gathering as much courage as he could muster, he knocked on the door and waited. He missed his vampire hearing in that moment – not knowing how much time he had to prepare himself to see her face and look in her eyes. He knocked again and soon heard footsteps approaching from a several feet away. His felt his heart leap in anticipation and then plummet due to fear of what she would say to him.

Caroline organized a Halloween party with the theme: "Superheroes of Mystic Falls." She assured Damon that Bonnie planned on attending, so he offered to pick up the beautiful witch and take her back to the Salvatore mansion. He decided to dress as The Winter Soldier from The Avengers. He wore a black pair of cargo pants, a black shirt and jacket. He used shiny silver duct tape and wrapped it around his left arm from his fingers to his shoulder to simulate the Winter Soldier's metal arm. He also painted a red star to his shoulder to complete the costume.

The door in front of him opened slowly and his eyes immediately fixed on Bonnie's heart-shaped face. Damon didn't realize just how much he missed her until he saw her again. He fought the urge to pull her into a hug and never let her go.

Bonnie chose to dress as Storm from the X-Men. Her long black hair cascaded in loose curls along her shoulders. She attached a white hair extension to look more like her character. She donned a tight-fitting leather jumpsuit with a black cape attached, and a black belt with a silver "X" in the center.

"It's good to have you home," Damon blurted out, "And aren't you a sexy little member of the X-Men?"

Bonnie blushed at his compliment, but her expression immediately straightened. She felt guilty for allowing herself to feel anything other than indifference for the man standing in front of her. She willed her heart to calm down and focused on making her words.

"Thanks Damon," she muttered, "We should get going."

She briefly turned her back to him and locked her front door. Damon silently led her to his Camaro and opened the passenger door. She thanked him again and sat down without another word. He realized the three-mile trip back to the Salvatore Mansion would be the longest trip either of them would take.

Bonnie stared out the window as Damon glanced between the road ahead and the woman beside him. He had trouble finding his words. He wanted their reunion to be warm, but the chill of the October night filtered its way into his car and much of it emanated from Bonnie.

The silence soon got to him.

"We all missed you, Bon Bon. You know that, right?" he offered.

Bonnie fiddled with her cape before answering.

"I…I missed you guys too," she said quietly.

Damon took a deep breath, not knowing if he should broach the subject, but he needed answers to questions and she wasn't volunteering any information. She simply stared out of the window as if he didn't exist; as if their friendship never existed.

"I missed you, Bonnie. That's why I called you twice a day, every day," he offered, "Why didn't you call me back?"

Bonnie's breathing picked up. She feared this conversation for the past nine months and didn't feel ready to discuss it at the moment. She began to fidget again, but it didn't help calm her nerves. She decided to stall.

"Can we talk about this some other time?" she asked in a quiet voice, fighting back tears.

"No, we can't," he said, a touch of frustration in his voice. He needed to talk to her. He needed to know.

Bonnie turned toward him, anger simmering through her veins. How dare he force her to talk about something when she wasn't ready?! Apparently turning human didn't eliminate the pushiness of the former vampire.

"Stop the car!" she growled at him.

"Excuse me?" Damon asked.

"Stop the damn car or I'll stop it for you," she threatened.

"Bon, we're almost at the house. I'm not stopping here – not this close to the woods," he asserted.

A frustrated Bonnie used magic to push the brake pedal down and bring the Camaro to a screeching halt. Damon swore as Bonnie unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed out of the car. Her nerves vibrated as the flurry of emotions stirred inside of her. She began to walk in the opposite direction of the house, with no real plan to on how she would get home. Sitting next to him was too difficult. Too many things needed to remain unsaid for the sake of their friendship, which was already on shaky ground.

Bonnie neglected calling him for a host of reasons, not the least of which was watching his reunion with Elena and knowing that she no longer mattered to him. She didn't plan on waiting for phone calls that never came and Movie Nights that never materialized. She refused to endure additional heartbreak, so she left town as soon as possible.

Bonnie wanted to distance herself from the pain of the past, so she deliberately avoided it by only communicating with Caroline; the only person in her life that appeared to care about her well being.

After four months in Europe, she received a text from Caroline, requesting a phone call to receive some shocking news. Bonnie reluctantly contacted her friend only to learn that Elena and Damon broke up permanently before Miss Gilbert left for medical school. All of Bonnie's efforts to give them their happy ending…all of her sacrifices, Stefan's sacrifices, meant nothing.

So when he called her a few weeks later, she forcefully pushed the "ignore" button on her phone and deleted his voicemail without listening to it. She didn't want to hear his voice nor did she want to hear his explanation. His reasons meant nothing. He'd spent years pining for Elena only to abandon the relationship less than 90 days after rekindling it.

Damon left Bonnie to desiccate in a coffin, leaving her to fend for herself and attach her heart to yet another person she would eventually lose. All that heartache couldn't be healed with one phone call or one voicemail.

As she stomped down the road in her black leather boots, she fumed at the fact that she agreed to ride to the Halloween party with Damon. Why had she allowed her curiosity to get the better of her? Why did she leave herself with no other way home than to depend on a man in whom she'd lost faith?

She heard his footsteps behind her and quickened her pace even though she knew he'd eventually catch up with her. She hated feeling this way. She hated this town and every emotion that came with it.

"Where the Hell do you think you're going?" Damon asked, his voice still about 10 feet behind her.

"Home, I guess!" she bit back.

Damon ran up to her, easily keeping pace with her stride.

"Why bother getting dressed up and agreeing to come if you're going to chicken out now?" he asked, his voice angry and a bit desperate.

"I'm not chicken. I'm just sick of this town and my place it in. Damn it, I should have stayed in Europe," Bonnie growled at him.

Damon sped up and stood in front of Bonnie to block her path.

"Then why did you come back? Let's see: you didn't bother calling anybody other than Caroline. You didn't bother letting us know how you were really doing –" Damon started to say.

"Like you cared!" she yelled back at him, her tears blurring her vision.

"Damn it, I did care! I do care!" he pointed out, "Why do you think I called you God knows how many times without you bothering to pick up the phone or even call me back?"

Bonnie began to breath heavily. She backed away from him, but he continued to walk toward her.

"Bonnie stop!" he called after her.

"I'm not doing this, Damon," she said.

Damon ran to catch up with her. Once he did, he wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her. Bonnie considered pulling away from him, but she didn't. She missed being held more than she ever cared to admit. She missed the warmth. She missed feeling loved. After all this time, she hated to acknowledge to herself, but she missed …Damon.

Every emotion she had held in for years came bubbling to the surface and she began to shake. She soon felt his grip tighten around her, as if he were trying to keep her from falling apart as they stood in the middle of the road, several feet from his car.

"You can cry," Damon offered in a soft voice.

She shook her head, but the tears fell anyway.

"I figured I'd be out of tears by now," she said.

She felt him place a kiss on top of her head. It only made her cry harder. She didn't bother wiping the teardrops away.

"Well, what I'll tell you is that I've cried more over the past year than I have in the past 150," Damon admitted.

Bonnie sniffled, but remained still – waiting for Damon to continue.

"Sometimes I miss being a vampire, then I could just turn it off…all the pain of it. Losing Stefan – Fuck, there were days when I couldn't manage it; not knowing if I would ever see my kid brother again. Sometimes I thought it might break me," he said, pausing for a moment, "The thing is, I didn't break at losing him… I broke nine months ago … when you left."

The words didn't register in Bonnie's brain immediately. She used the cape from her costume to wipe face. Her body began to shudder and Damon's grip grew tighter.

"You left me first," she pointed out, "You spent three years in a coffin waiting on someone else, not giving a damn what happened to the other people that loved you; not even me. I was supposed to be your best friend."

"I know that, and I'm sorry. When I came back, I also told you that I'd never leave you again, but then you left me," he explained.

"You got what you wanted. The same thing you wanted for all these years: Elena. There was no need for me to stick around after that," Bonnie snapped at him.

"I got what I thought I wanted," Damon retorted, "If you listened to your voicemail or even called me back once, you would know that."

"Caroline already told me that the two of you broke up. After everything all of us went through, you broke up with her: The love of your life. What else do I need to know?" Bonnie asked, her anger briefly giving way to curiosity.

Damon leaned down so he could whisper in her ear.

"The reason I _why_ broke up with her," he said.

Bonnie quickly decided she didn't want to know the reason. She considered stepping away from him again, but he gently held her in place, stroking her arms.

"Let me go, Damon" she demanded.

"Is that really what you want, or do you want to know why I ended it?" he asked, with his hands resting on her waist.

She stopped fighting him and bit her lip in nervousness. Once he loosened his hold, she turned around to face him. Bonnie told herself not to look into his eyes. She wouldn't be able to hide from him; as a human, he would be able to read her far better than he could as a vampire.

"What difference would it make?" she finally asked.

Damon brushed the hair that fell in her face. Bonnie instinctively looked up at him, but then looked away.

"Because _you_ are the reason," he said.

Bonnie's body froze in disbelief. She convinced herself that he misspoke until Damon placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. The butterflies in her stomach stirred to life. She'd held back her feelings for so long, burying them beneath anger and pain. She refused to believe it. A part of her wanted to run. Another part of her wanted to stay in his arms forever. Too confused and hopeful to decide, she remained silent until he spoke again.

"Do you love me, Bonnie?" Damon asked in a soft voice.

She considered lying to him. She'd spent so much time lying to herself for so long, but the truth was real and neither of them could ignore it any longer. Keeping it inside wouldn't help, so she spoke without thinking – only feeling.

"Of course I love you, Damon," she answered.

Damon lifted her chin, his cobalt blue eyes capturing her emerald green orbs. Their gazes locked for several seconds and she felt something sincere and hopeful expand in her chest. It warmed her from head to toe on the cold October night.

"Then, Bonnie Sheila Bennett: Let me love you back," he said.

He brushed his nose against his hers and caressed her bottom lip with the pad of his right thumb. She could feel his heat, his human warmth wrap itself around her like a blanket keeping her shielded from the chilly breeze that whipped around them.

Damon's lips brushed hers briefly, a silent request to proceed further. Bonnie answered him by wrapping her arms around his neck, still shaking from the nervousness and excitement of the moment. His lips then claimed hers again, kissing her with more passion and longing that either of them expected. Gone was the hesitation; replaced by something formerly forbidden between them, but presently necessary.

As the kiss deepened, neither realized that a pair of hazel eyes watched their embrace, which was illuminated by the moon and a bright red set of brake lights.

A tiny pair of feet shuffled in the darkness, then headed in the direction of the Salvatore mansion. The small child used magic to open and close the front door. She ran back into the living room in fits of giggles and tapped her mother in the leg.

"Mommy, Mommy. Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Damon are _kissing_ ," Josie squealed, as she popped a piece of candy in her mouth.

Caroline gave her daughter a wide smile and pulled the small child into her lap.

"Well, it's about time!" Caroline said.


End file.
